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The View from My Kitchen

Benvenuti! I hope you enjoy il panorama dalla mia cucina Italiana -- "the view from my Italian kitchen,"-- where I indulge my passion for Italian food and cooking. From here, I share some thoughts and ideas on food, as well as recipes and restaurant reviews, notes on travel, and a few garnishes from a lifetime in the entertainment industry.

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Grazie mille!

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

A Deadly Bread Additive And A Killer Bread Recipe

The “Staff Of Life” May Be Trying
To Kill You

I make no secret of the fact that I
don't buy bread. Haven't in many, many years. Oh, maybe the very rare
“emergency loaf,” but even then I buy it from the supermarket's
bakery section. At least it's closer to being bread that way. The plastic-wrapped
bread-like substances that inhabit grocery shelves are not welcome in
my kitchen. I don't like the taste – or lack thereof. I don't like
the gummy, pasty texture. And I really don't care to be embalmed
before I'm dead by all the preservatives. The idea that I can buy a
loaf of “bread” that will still be “good”.....well.... intact
anyway....after several weeks in my breadbox is frankly horrifying.
Like the bread my mother made when I was growing up, the bread I make
today begins to mold after about a week. Less in really hot, humid
weather. And that's what bread is supposed to
do. It's not supposed to last until Gabriel's trumpet blows. This
store-bought Franken-bread that seems to live forever is just plain
unnatural.

And now the word is
the stuff can kill you.

A lot
of cheap, store-bought breads and other baked goods are often made
with bromated flour. That is flour to which potassium bromate has
been added. This additive is used to strengthen dough, increase its
rise in the oven, and to impart a nice white color to the bread.
Tests on lab animals also indicate that it causes significant
increases in kidney, thyroid, and other cancers. A recent (2011)
study shows that potassium bromate can damage human DNA and
cause oxidative stress. Potassium bromate is nephrotoxic in humans,
meaning it has a poisonous effect on the kidneys when it’s taken
orally.The
International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified the
substance as a “potential human carcinogen.” And potassium
bromate has long been banned as a food additive by the European
Union, the U.K., Canada, and Brazil. Here in the U.S. – where we
have the best monitoring agency big corporate money can buy – the
FDA allows the stuff to be fed to us, although they do set a limit of
seventy-five parts per million. Short of banning potassium bromate
outright, as other countries have done, our FDA “urges” bakers to
“voluntarily” stop using it. And a lot of the major national
bakeries have done just that, opting to use other “safer”
additives to achieve the same effect. But many of the smaller, local
“mom and pop” bakers still use the stuff because it's cheap and
easy. Check your labels. To date, only California requires warnings
to be posted on bromated products. Everybody else has to read the
fine print.

Watch your flour,
too. If you bake at home, beware of bleached and bromated flours.
Bleaching and bromating are not the same thing, although they do
serve much the same purpose. In bleaching, a chemical like benzoyl
peroxide or calcium peroxide is introduced to the flour to aid in
gluten development and to make it nice and white. Both of which are
entirely unnecessary. And benzoyl peroxide and calcium peroxide are
hardly lily white (sorry) when it come to health. The former has many
researchers questioning its effects on the human digestive system and
the latter, like potassium bromate, has been banned nearly everywhere
except in the U.S. Bottom line: buy flour that is clearly labeled as
“unbleached” and “unbromated.” I prefer King Arthur and use
it exclusively.

Bread has long been
called “the staff of life.” How curious and somewhat ironic,
then, that modern-day store-bought, conveniently sliced and packaged
bread may be trying to kill us. I know that's a bit hyperbolic, but
honestly, between the scary preservatives and the possibly
carcinogenic additives, it's not far from the truth. All the more
reason to make it yourself.

Omar
Khayyam waxed rhapsodic about a jug of wine and a loaf of bread. On the subject of bread and "whine," here's my favorite: “I don't have the
ti-i-i-i-i-i-i-ime.” Or maybe, “It's too ha-a-a-a-a-ard.” Both
are completely specious and bogus excuses. Whether for catering or
home use, I bake all my own breads. French baguettes, crusty Italian
loaves, pizza crusts, grissini, garlic
knots, dinner rolls, sandwich rolls, or just plain old white sandwich
bread – I bake 'em all. None take more than a couple of hours and
none are at all “ha-a-a-a-a-ard” to make.

One of the easiest
and most delicious bread doughs in my repertoire is made up of three
ingredients and it doesn't even require kneading. It's a “slack
dough” recipe, meaning it produces a very wet dough, and your
refrigerator does most of the work. Best of all, the dough keeps in
the fridge for up to two weeks. Make up a loaf today and when you use
it up, reach into the chill chest, grab another handful of dough, and
bake up another loaf. It really is that simple.

A
couple of phenomenal bakers, Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François,
produced a wonderful book, "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day." A lot of other bakers, including yours truly and the
skilled artisans at King Arthur, have adopted and adapted their
recipe for a delicious “no-knead” crusty artisan bread. You'll
never find an easier or more delicious bread than this one.

One quick note: American bakers are the
only ones in the world who still use “cups” as a standard of
measurement. Everybody else weighs their ingredients. Digital scales
are dirt cheap and I use mine for everything. If you're going to get
serious about baking (or cooking), rustle up a scale.

For this recipe, you're going to need
907.2 grams (32 ounces; 2 pounds) of unbleached all-purpose flour.
Again, I recommend King Arthur, but if you have another preference,
just make sure it's unbleached. If you insist on
using cups, allow for 6 ½ to 7 ½ cups. The difference is in the
method of measuring you use. If you are a “sprinkle and sweeper,”
that is, if you kind of fluff up or aerate your flour by scooping it
out of the bag and into a cup, then leveling it off, you'll use the
greater amount. If you are a “dip and sweeper,” one who dips a
cup into the bag, tamps it down and sweeps off the excess, you'll use
the lesser amount. If you want to do it right, you'll just weigh it.

Combine
all the ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix everything together
until a very rough, very sticky
dough forms. I wouldn't try this one in a bread machine. For one
thing, two pounds of flour will overwhelm most of them. Same goes for
cheap, low-powered stand mixers. If you don't have a KitchenAid or
something of equal power, just mix it by hand using a big wooden
paddle or spoon or a dough whisk. If you do have
a decent stand mixer, about a minute at medium speed with the beater
blade rather than the dough hook will do the job.

Now
you just let it rise. My advice would be to invest in a restaurant
quality six-quart food grade plastic container. You can get one at a
restaurant supply store for five or six bucks. And you can use it for
a ton of things besides bread dough. Otherwise, come up with a large
sealable plastic container of
some sort. You don't have to grease
the container, but a shot of Pam will help in the long run. Transfer
the dough from the bowl to the prepared container, cover it loosely
(don't snap the lid on airtight) and let it sit at room temperature
for about two hours. Then stick it in the refrigerator for at least
two hours before you try to use it. Overnight is best. The beauty of
this is dough is that it can actually live in the fridge for up to
two weeks. One week is recommended by some sources, but others say
two weeks works. Because of the volume of bread I bake, mine has
never lasted more than a week so I don't know from personal
experience. The longer you keep it, the more flavor it will develop.
Don't be surprised if it tastes a little like sourdough after about a
week.

To
make bread out of this mass of dough, just reach in there and pull
out a big hunk; about ¼ of the dough. If you have a scale, it should
weigh in at about one pound, give or take an ounce. You might want to
flour your hands a little bit if the dough is really sticky. Hold the
dough and dust it with a little flour, then quickly shape it into a
ball. Try to get a nice tight surface by stretching the dough around
to the bottom on all sides, rotating ¼ turns as you go. Don't
worry if it's not perfect.

Place the shaped dough on a parchment
lined peel. “Wait a minute,” you ask, “who's got one of those?”
Well...I've got two. But a flat, rimless baking sheet works as well.
Cover the dough loosely with a towel and let it stand in a warm,
draft free place for about one hour or until the dough is slightly
puffed up and no longer feels cold.

Thirty minutes before
you're ready to bake, place a baking stone on the center oven rack.
“Baking stone?” Okay, don't worry about it. Just use the flat
baking sheet. And you know that broiler pan that came with your oven
that you never use? Time to use it. Stick it on the bottom rack. Now
preheat your oven to 450°.

Dust the top of your loaf with a little
more flour and, with a very sharp knife, make two or three 1/4-inch
deep slashes in the top of the loaf. Then either slide the loaf with
the parchment paper onto the baking stone or just slip your parchment
lined baking sheet into the oven. Quickly pour a cup of water into
the broiler pan (to create steam) and close the oven door.

Bake for thirty minutes or until your
loaf is a deep golden brown. If you have an instant read thermometer,
your bread should temp at 190°
to 200°. But the old “tap
it and if it sounds hollow it's done” trick works, too. Cool your
boule (that's French for “ball,” which is what you've got) on a
wire rack and you've got delicious, nutritious, preservative-free
bread. How nutritious? I'll tell you: an average slice contains
80 cal; 0 g total fat; 0 g unsaturated fat; 2.5 g protein; 16.5 g
carb; 0 mg cholesterol; 135 mg sodium; .5 g fiber.

There you have it: a
killer recipe for bread that won't try to kill you. Enjoy!

Who Am I (and Why Should You Care)?

I've been around long enough to know a little bit about a lot of things. That said, there are a couple of things I know a little bit more about; food and entertainment.

I've been cooking since I was a kid -- a very long time, indeed -- and I've spent most of my adult life in the entertainment industry.

I've been writing about one or the other of these topics since the '80s, and I have been published in numerous magazines and newspapers over the years. I also spent the better part of two decades behind a microphone as the host of my own radio talk show.

Does all of this make me an expert? Nah! But I'm certainly entitled to my opinion -- and so are you! :-)